


Objectively Objectionable

by SassafrassRex (Serbajean)



Series: When Words Fail [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 4th wall breakage, And was a teenager once, In fact some is Pre-Garrison, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro got some weeeeeeiiiirrrrd taste, but just a little bit, pre-kerberos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 12:59:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9236231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serbajean/pseuds/SassafrassRex
Summary: Answer to the most wonderful Ask:What is Psytrance? And why does Shiro love it?Could have been a headcanon. Has since grown into a music fic.From Tumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the delightful [15strawberri3s](http://15strawberri3s.tumblr.com/) who actually indulged me by asking.  
> Anyone curious about the 'what is'--I do explain _very briefly_ in the original [Ask.](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/post/154870776390/hello-i-hope-you-dont-mind-me-asking-but-what) But honestly? You'd maybe have a better time just giving some of the prototypical stuff [a little bit of a listen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uloBD9xxwZ0/)
> 
> Also associated/prequel to/what have you, with [Prosocial Reciprocity.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9237593)

 

 

Well, he didn’t exactly  _expect_ he would. During his adolescence he was… well, he was  _an adolescent_. A fairly disorganized semi-disaster, skating by on half-assed talent, and buoyed up by his scorn for mainstream sheeple.

(Don’t judge. You had teenage years too.)  

His first introduction comes in Bangkok, from a Sikh ex-patriot. A guy originally from just outside Amritsar (yes, _the_ Amritsar). Sentiments of goodwill and ‘Eh, try anything once’ conspire to actually get Shiro to join him, out to a part of town where he’s never been before. After the sun sets and the spiders wake up.

And…

And there’s sound and there’s fire, and it’s either like being electrified or it’s like spiritual extinguishment. Streaming pyrotechnics turn into slithering snakes turn into waving ribbons turn again into so much  _fire_. Whichever, whatever, but it’s the phrase “dreaming wide awake” finally making sense to him.

He goes home achy and jittery, with  _such_ a headache. But something gets him to come back again (he’ll try to claim it was peer pressure).

(And nononono,  _shit_  this is worse-better-worse _-more_. He was going to stay sober this time, he wasn’t supposed to  _go even further_  and god where’s the ground? _Find the ground!_ )

He never does gets super into the scene (probably a good thing). But still, there’s something strangely satisfying about occasionally having his brain folded into an origami unicorn (and various other terrible, wonderful states that perhaps won’t  _quite_ make sense in the light of day (or without the paradigm-shifting influence of things he won’t admit to ever having taken)).

 

 

Successfully getting into the Garrison means concerts and other madness are pretty definitively struck from his itinerary.

That’s okay. It’s not like it  _stops_ being fun to listen to, just because he’s no longer baked (ahem, not that he has ever–No Sir, not him).

Also (serendipitous bonus) it makes pretty good work music.

–Which is not a small deal. Shiro’s not about to turn his nose up at a potential study aid (but don’t tell anyone. His classmates have this bizarre notion that he’s… what, just dedicated? That he lives, eats, and breathes physics, on twentysomething hours of sleep per week, and it all just  _comes naturally_?… … Hilarious).

Sometimes he sets his wrung-out brain to a task and it just starts hamster-wheeling,  _a la  
What do they keep doing to the mac ‘n cheese… wonder if I could bribe the kitchen? Keith and ‘_ altercation’ _, are seen together way too often. Hmmm, that guy outside mess this morning, he was looking really worried.Why is there never enough time for this? Because shut up. Focus._

_…_

_Still need to wrangle that garage key from Munsi somehow. How much sleep happened this week? Last week… hey that kid was looking bad last week too, wasn’t he? Maybe keep an eye out for him. And a nap, how about a nap? Nope, wake up! Nope nap.  Nope nap, nope nap. Heh funny…_

_Crap. Focus._

And so on and so forth. So much for productively. However.

It’s pretty hard to zone off into dopey somnambulism when there’s psychedelic Israeli bedlam jumpstarting his every neuron and giving it rock candy.

(Rock c—what, like—whoa,  _fuck_ no (Sir) _,_ not even if you paid him. He doesn’t hate himself that much.)

Once upon a time he might have thought it would lose all its resonance, if he ever listened while sober (once upon a time, he was a bromidic, snarky teenager, wasn’t he?)

 

 

When Voltron steps in and takes over his life, he hasn’t really had  _any_ Earth music at all for a long while. Unlike some of the others, he  _didn’t_ happen to get conscripted with his files and headphones conveniently stashed on his person (the Galra are rude that way).

He really has no idea, but  _somehow_ Pidge gets wind of this.

And  _yeah it’s some of Matt’s old stuff_ and _what,_ _you’re the one who turned him onto that crap, remember?_ and  _Shiro why didn’t you just ask?_

Headphones in hand, he sits down and wonders a little bit, whether there’s enough of him left, to still go where he used to.

Feeling sort of ridiculous, he slips them on, reminding himself that it’ll _probably_ just turn out to be one more piece of pre-Galra life that he can’t connect with anymore. (Don’t be disappointed, there are lots of those anyway.)

But the music kicks on and he needn’t have worried (and that shouldn’t be so surprising as it is). All at once, he’s lightyears apart from this, from the Galra; gone straight back, _all_ the way back to Thailand, watching fire slither away to snakes.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come enjoy the space dorks and laugh at/with/at me on [Tumblr.](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Adventures of Shiro and Harold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237413) by [15Strawberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/15Strawberries/pseuds/15Strawberries)




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